The present invention relates to a connector for flat electric cable which is used for wiring electronic equipment such as a computer.
Flat electric cable, which is frequently employed for wiring electronic equipment, is manufactured by juxtaposing plural conductors and molding the assembled conductors with insulation material into a tape-shaped cable.
To connect flat electric cable to a printed circuit board in electronic equipment, a connector and a terminal block shown in FIGS. 1A-1C can be employed. FIG. 1A is a perspective view of the connector. The connector includes a housing 2 having a cable insertion hole 3 and a plurality of resilient contacts 4 arranged in the cable insertion hole 3. As shown in FIG. 1C which is a sectional view taken along line 1C--1C in FIG. 1A, each of the contacts 4 has a portion extending through the housing 2 to serve as a leg 5 of the connector terminal. In FIGS. 1A and 1C, reference numeral 10 designates partition walls which are formed on the inner surface of one side of the housing.
The terminal member 6 of the flat electric cable which is inserted into the cable insertion hole 3 of the connector is formed as follows. End portions of the conductors 8 of the flat cord 7 are exposed by removing portions of the insulation material from the cable after which a plastic plate 9 is bonded to one side of the flat cable 7. The plastic plate 9 is longer than the exposed parts of the conductors 8. Flat electric cables with such terminal members 6 are commercially available.
In the connector 1, the legs 5 of the terminals are arranged at equal intervals at a pitch A in a single line. The pitch A of the legs is equal to the pitch P of the conductors 4 in the connector, that is, the pitch B of the conductors in the flat electric cable.
The legs 5 of the connector terminals are soldered to a printed circuit board or the like. In view of the accuracy of a pattern formed on a printed circuit board and the accuracy and reliability of the legs which are soldered to the printed circuit board, the pattern pitch corresponding to the pitch A of the legs 5 of the connector terminals is limited. Accordingly, it is not practical to reduce the pitch A to less than a certain limiting value. In the case of manufacturing the connectors on a large scale, the limiting pitch of the legs along the same line is 1/10 inch. That is, it is impossible to decrease the pitch of the legs 5 to less than that value so that the density of the connector terminals is correspondingly limited.
Accordingly, the primary object of the present invention is to eliminate the above-described difficulties accompanying a conventional connector.